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Field Sedimentary Geology... Important
Egyptian Mohole... A Future Necessity
Soliman M. Soliman

Dept. Geology, Fac. Sciences, Ain Shams Univ., Cairo, Egypt.

CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS

Facts and fantasies are behind the idea of my present chairman' scientific address...

The FACT, I remember from our Ancient Egyptian history. It says in a papyrus about the first day of schooling of an Egyptian child... After washing, nice clean dress..., the child went to his father who in his talk, advised him abstractly "to obey your teacher...., have him always between your eyes and his words between your ears...". When the Egyptian child joyfully returned home with his stack of writings... an informative parental chat ended with his father's comment... "the thing is not only what in your hands but what you have earned in yourself". This factual wisdom has survived in our Egyptian villages to the common proverb:

"El EIm Fi ElRas Mesh Fi ElKorass (Knowledge or cognition is what in the head not what in the books)

The FANTASY, from my science-fiction of "imagining the unthinkable", is gathering the 5.5 billion World population in one place, with each individual having 4 sq m area (far more than the average individual housing area of more than 70% of World population), it will occupy 22,000 sq km, an area nearly equal to the Nile Delta (or to Djibouti, Massachusetts, Sardinia, Wales, or Hessen). The rest of the Earth will be a wilderness for life, and mankind facilities, commodities and joy...

Where are such facts and fantasies in our sedimentologic approaches, or geology in general?

Generally, geology with its branches including disciplines of sedimentary geology, depends on 3 interfingering aspects: Theoritization, experimental and field observations. All these depend primarily and ultimately on "NATURE" (Ancient Egyptian word "NETER") of the Earth which has been to Man a medium of truthful factual search, depth, reasoning and interpretation.

Needless definition, field geology (including sedimentary geology) is the spinal cord to all our studies. Those who indulge themselves solely on mere superstitious theoritization and laboratorial ideas, need at the end field natural juridical support. From the Earth, information is initiated and to it, return our results and interpretations to see which are the more appropriate and correct.

Such theme of the present advancement of sedimentary geology (or geology in general) can be visualized in the past, and will exist into the future.